NGC 891 (also known as Caldwell 23) is an edge-on barred spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. It was discovered by William Herschel on October 6, 1784. The galaxy is a member of the NGC 1023 group of galaxies in the Local Supercluster. It has an H II nucleus and is is visible in small to moderate size telescopes as a faint elongated smear of light with a dust lane visible in larger apertures.

In 2005, due to its attractiveness and scientific interest, NGC 891 was selected to be the first light image of the Large Binocular Telescope. In 2012, it was again used as a first light image of the Discovery Channel Telescope with the Large Monolithic Imager.

Supernova SN 1986J was discovered in the galaxy on August 21, 1986 at apparent magnitude 14. (Narrative Credit: Wikipedia)

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This image is a collaboration with my good friend, John Struckmeyer. John acquired a total of 67 subexposures for this image and I was able to use all of them in processing this image; this attests to how skillfully John operated his equipment.

Date:
October, 2012

Location:
Ft. Griffin State Historic Site, Texas

Telescope:
RCOS 12.5 RC @ f/9 2800mm FL

Mount:
Astro-Physics 1200 guided by ST-10XME using the Remote Guide Head
Thru Hutech Off Axis Guider

Camera:
SBIG ST-10XME at prime focus with CFW8 using LRGB filters

Image Scale:
.5 arcsecs/pxl

Camera Control:
Maxim DL 4

Exposures:
Luminance - 250 mins; 1x1
Red - 70 mins; 2x2
Green - 70 mins; 2x2
Blue - 70 mins; 2x2

Exposure time:
7 hrs 40 mins

Processing:
CCDStack; Photoshop CS2; StarSpikes Pro 2